KMGH-Channel 7 on Thursday named Lindsay Radford news director, effective April 30. She fills a position open for seven months (since Jeff Harris left for Cleveland last August). Radford returns to Denver from the Twin Cities, where she has been news director at KSTP and KSTC in St. Paul/Minneapolis for seven years.

Radford is known for bringing a focus on investigative and enterprise reporting to the Minneapolis stations, boosting the output to 55 hours of newscasts per week, and winning national awards for the effort.

Under her direction, KSTP won the prestigious Peabody Award for its yearlong investigation into military procedures that put service members at risk in Iraq and a National Emmy for its coverage of a deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

Brad Remington, a former Denver TV news director, will begin March 9 as the new VP/General Manager of Scripps’ KMGH-TV, ending the station’s five-month period without a GM.

The move marks a return to the Denver ABC affiliate for Remington, who served as managing editor there from 1989-1996, until he took his first news director post in Albuquerque.

He later moved to news director positions in St. Louis, Denver (at Fox’s KDVR) and Phoenix. He left KTVK in Phoenix to return to Denver a few years ago. He has been running a franchised chiropractic business in the interim.

Remington replaces Byron Grandy, who left the station abruptly in September after six years as general manager. Remington’s name had been circulated in recent weeks as the likely candidate for the job.

His first order of business: The station is currently without a news director, since Jeff Harris moved to the Scripps station WEWS in his hometown of Cleveland last year.

Scripps’ Steve Wasserman, interim manager at KMGH, released this statement:

“Denver is a high-profile market in the company, and Brad possesses the unique combination of management style, editorial judgment and knowledge of the local area to serve the community and to meet the needs of advertisers,” said Steve Wasserman, vice president and divisional general manager for Scripps. “Brad has the right entrepreneurial spirit and understanding of the changing habits of consumers to drive KMGH in the right direction for our news products across multiple platforms and customized sales solutions for area businesses.”

With neither general manager nor news director in place, KMGH Channel 7 is a station adrift.

When KMGH General Manager Byron Grandy abruptly left the station in September with no explanation, the corporate bosses at E.W. Scripps sent Steve Wasserman, an interim executive from WPTV West Palm Beach, to calm nerves and steady the ship.

The sweeps period, when ratings are measured to set future advertising rates, shows that, while the overall number of metro area homes using television (HUT) in the morning hasn’t declined, the station standings have changed.

From 5-7 a.m. weekdays amoung adults 25-54, the KUSA wake-up show holds the lead with a 1.3 rating, down 27 percent from a year ago. But KCNC is a close second with a 0.9 rating, up 69 percent from a year ago. KMGH is a very close third with a 0.7 rating, down 10 percent from last year.

The 6 a.m. race similarly demonstrates alterations: KUSA scored a 1.8 rating, down 26 percent from a year earlier. KCNC scored a 1.2 rating, up 68 percent from a year earlier. Four-tenths of a point away from the leader. KMGH declined to a 0.8 rating, down 19 percent from a year earlier.

At the same time, nationally “CBS This Morning” posted the largest viewership in the time slot in more than 10 years, gaining 290,000 viewers to become “the only network morning broadcast to maintain its adults 25-54 rating compared to a year ago,” per CBS.

“We have a symbiotic relationship with “CBS This Morning,” said CBS4 News Director Tim Wieland. Locally, “the team is clicking.” The goal is to stick with harder news and information while competitors trade in lighter, more personality-driven fare in the morning.

The late-news contest points to similar movement. So far, KUSA is on track to win with a 3.8 rating at 10 p.m. (adults 25-54), down 25 percent from a year ago. KCNC is in position to finish second with a 2.2, up 5 percent from a year ago. KMGH will be third with a 1.4 rating, down 18 percent from a year ago. And KDVR will post a 0.9 rating, up 13 percent from a year earlier.

KUSA says they would expect to be down from last February’s numbers due to 2014’s Olympics broadcasts which ran for 14 days of the sweeps. Also, despite the Brian Williams debacle, “NBC Nightly News” still did a hefty number (3.83 rating), more than double the network competition and even higher than 9News at 10 p.m. (3.78 rating).

The Oscars, with first-time host Neil Patrick Harris, saw its ratings drop to a six-year low on Sunday. (ABC/Craig Sjodin)

Sunday night’s Academy Award telecast drew a huge audience, but not as huge as in past years. In fact, it marked a six-year low. The Neil Patrick Harris-hosted Oscars 2015 on ABC Feb. 22 drew 36.6 million viewers and a 10.8 rating in the key demographic, adults 18-49. Last year’s telecast drew 43.7 million viewers and a 13.1 rating in that demo.

The fact that smaller films were nominated this year — the winner “Birdman” and “Boyhood,” the other frontrunner — accounts for most of the drop.

We’ll have to see whether ABC’s kiss-off to affiliates contributed to a decline in the local 10 p.m. news ratings: following the Oscars, a network promo for “The Goldbergs” featured Wendi McLendon-Covey (“Bridesmaids”) as Beverly Goldberg, talking directly into the camera, telling viewers, “It’s over. Turn it off. What are you still doing here?” The encouragement to quit before local stations’ late news may have been taken to heart.

Of course it’s all in fun, and Will Ferrell is likely to win, but look who nominated himself for People magazine’s “Sexiest Anchor Alive” contest: KMGH’s Eric Kahnert.

7News newcomer posted the following on Facebook on Tuesday:

Eric Kahnert
Okay, now my webteam is getting in on this madness .. apparently they think I have a shot … if you concur … and want to see me in People Magazine … you have to send-out a tweet with this: @peoplemag @erickahnert #SexiestAnchorAlive

Odd way to introduce oneself to the No. 17 market as the newest lead anchor at the station known for serious journalistic content.

Is this the new direction 7News will take, once a general manager and news director are named? The station that has built a national reputation on investigative journalism and major awards, including the Peabody and the DuPont/Columbia, hasn’t done this sort of stunt before. We’ll see.

Longtime KMGH boss Byron Grandy, who rose from news director to become vice president and general manager of the station, abruptly resigned his post and left the company, Scripps confirmed Monday.

Grandy joined KMGH, then owned by McGraw-Hill Broadcasting, as news director in December 2000. He was named station manager in July 2008. It was Grandy who created and nurtured a newsroom culture that resulted in cases of trophies in recent years, including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Columbia-DuPont Award and numerous regional Emmys.

Steve Wasserman, vice president and general manager of WPTV West Palm Beach (an NBC affiliate owned and operated by The E.W. Scripps Company) and divisional general manager for Scripps, is serving as interim general manager. Wasserman declined to comment on the reasons for or manner of Grandy’s departure but supplied a note to the staff:

I want to inform you that Byron Grandy has resigned as general manager of KMGH effective immediately and has left the company. Byron has made significant contributions to the station during his years here as news director and GM and the station is stronger as a result. Scripps wishes him well as he moves to the next stage of his career.

An extensive search for his successor will begin immediately. In the interim, I will be serving as acting general manager. I look forward to meeting with as many of you as possible in the coming weeks and to thank you for the excellent work you have been doing and, no doubt, will be doing in the future.

Steve Wasserman
VP/ Divisional General Manager
Scripps Television

Some newsroom staffers said they were taken by surprise. Competitors noted the company’s dissatisfaction with lagging ratings may have played a role in Grandy’s departure.

In August, the station’s news director Jeff Harris announced his departure to take the same post at WEWS, the Scripps station in Cleveland, his hometown. His last day was Friday.

The direction and leadership of the newsroom remains uncertain. Carl Bilek, executive producer of newsgathering, is currently the senior newsroom manager.

In the old days, sports talk radio had this handled. Now, Monday morning quarterbacking is a second-screen experience. Channel 7 is introducing a Monday morning one-hour digital fan chat for serious Broncos followers: “Orange and Blue Review.”

Beginning Sept. 8 at 7 a.m., the “appcast,” or mobile cast and chat sponsored by area Honda dealers, will go live, hosted by 7News’ Mitch Jelniker and Lionel Bienvenu. It won’t be televised on Channel 7 (“Good Morning America” will be in progress). The audience is instead encouraged to chime in via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Skype or phone. A chat box will be launched under the live-stream, and questions will be welcome on various platforms.

To watch, download the free 7NEWS app for iPhone, Android or iPad or live-stream online at TheDenverChannel.com. The stream will also be simulcast on the station’s digital channel, Comcast Channel 247.

Obviously, the challenge was to launch a Broncos show without having rights to actual Broncos. So Channel 7 decided to create a show using the fans’ mania as material, modeled on Scripps sister station WEWS’s show in Cleveland, “Dawgs on the Run.”

Jeff Harris, news director at KMGH since 2008, will leave the station in October to take a job in his hometown of Cleveland. Harris will join WEWS, an ABC affiliate within the Scripps corporate family, as news director. Harris has led the newsroom to journalism’s highest honors including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Columbia-DuPont Award as well as regional Emmys.

Harris informed the newsroom staff of his departure on Wednesday.
“This is all things coming together at the same time,” Harris said by phone. “It’s a great opportunity for me personally and a perfect match for the company. Everything is aligned. It is incredibly bittersweet because of the affection I have for Denver.” The timing is right, he said, because his kids are going to be in college back East, “and there’s a station in need in my hometown.”

KMGH General Manager Byron Grandy said, “this was a move that, when the job came open early in the spring, he’s sort of been toying with.”
The station plans a nationwide search for a successor.

Speaking of ratings, Grandy said he does not expect to take a ratings hit in the 6-7 p.m. hour when the two popular syndicated shows, “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune,” leave the station (relocating to Fox31.) A significant ratings decline has resulted in other markets when the long-running game shows leave established berths. Grandy expressed “great confidence” in the new 6 p.m. broadcast, to be anchored by Eric Kahnert, and the Scripps pop-culture half-hour at 6:30 p.m., which launch here Sept. 8.

Fans of “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” won’t have to change their schedules — only their channels — when the syndicated hits move to Fox31 on Sept. 8.

“Jeopardy” will continue weeknights at 6 p.m., “Wheel” at 6:30 p.m., with a second run for “Jeopardy” at noon weekdays and 10 p.m. Saturdays on KDVR. “Wheel” will have an additional run at 11:30 p.m. Sundays.

The station has a two- to three-year commitment and plans to “pull out the stops” in terms of promotion and getting the Wheelmobile here as part of its national tour this spring.

As reported, KMGH is giving up the syndicated shows as part of a cost-cutting move by owner Scripps, instead installing a local newscast at 6 p.m. and a Scripps pop-culture newsmagazine at 6:30 p.m.

The costs of syndicated programming has risen dramatically over the years. Particularly longstanding deals with a single station, as in the case of KMGH, some decades, have resulted in exorbitant licensing fees. Word is Gannett’s KTVD was in the bidding as well as KDVR, and the deal was set at roughly $30,000 a week. (Note, during political ad season, the station will more than make up the costs in advertising. Candidates and causes in Colorado are kicking in as much as $3,000 per 30-second spot during the daytime syndicated hits.)

The addition of these syndicated shows marks a shift in direction for Fox31, which presented itself as the younger, edgier, indie alternative to the mainstream network affiliates. Now, it will have older-skewing game shows — including “Celebrity Name Game,” the Craig Ferguson show in which Tribune has part ownership, “Hot Bench,” another courtroom show, and “Judge Judy.”

The younger, edgier holdout in syndication: look for reruns of “The Simpsons” weeknights at 11 and 11:30 p.m. on Fox31.

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.